• Chapter Eight •

“The Life Everlasting”

1.  “Arjuna asked:  O Lord of Lords! What is that which men call the Supreme Spirit, what is man's Spiritual Nature, and what is the Law?  What is Matter and what is Divinity?

2.  Who is it who rules the spirit of sacrifice in man; and at the time of death how may those who have learned self-control come to the knowledge of Thee?

3.  The Lord Shri Krishna replied:  The Supreme Spirit is the Highest Imperishable Self, and Its Nature is spiritual consciousness.  The worlds have been created and are supported by an emanation from the Spirit which is called the Law.

4.  Matter consists of the forms that perish; Divinity is the Supreme Self; and He who inspires the spirit of sacrifice in man, O noblest of thy race, is I Myself, Who now stand in human form before thee.

5.  Whosoever at the time of death thinks only of Me, and thinking thus leaves the body and goes forth, assuredly he will know Me.

6.  On whatever sphere of being the mind of man may be intent at the time of death, thither will he go.

7.  Therefore meditate always on Me, and fight; if thy mind and thy reason be fixed on Me, to Me shalt thou surely come.

8.  He whose mind does not wander, and who is engaged in constant meditation, attains the Supreme Spirit.

9.  Whoso meditates on the Omniscient, the Ancient, more Minute than the atom, yet the Ruler and Upholder of all, Unimaginable, Brilliant like the Sun, Beyond the reach of darkness;

10.  He who leaves the body with mind unmoved and filled with devotion, by the power of his meditation gathering between his eyebrows his whole vital energy, attains the Supreme.

11.  Now I will speak briefly of the imperishable goal, proclaimed by those versed in the scriptures, which the mystic attains when free from passion, and for which he is content to undergo the vow of continence.

12.  Closing the gates of the body, drawing the forces of his mind into the heart and by the power of meditation concentrating his vital energy in the brain;

13.  Repeating Om, the Symbol of Eternity, holding Me always in remembrance, he who thus leaves his body and goes forth reaches the Spirit Supreme.

14.  To him who thinks constantly of Me, and of nothing else, to such an ever-faithful devotee, O Arjuna, am I ever accessible.

15.  Coming thus unto Me, these great souls go no more to the misery and death of earthly life, for they have gained perfection.

16.  The worlds, with the whole realm of creation, come and go; but, O Arjuna, whoso comes to Me, for him there is no rebirth.

17.  Those who understand the cosmic day and the cosmic night know that one day of creation is a thousand cycles, and that the night is of equal length.

18.  At the dawning of that day all objects in manifestation stream forth from the Unmanifest, and when evening falls they are dissolved into It again.

19.  The same multitude of beings, which have lived on earth so often, all are dissolved as the night of the universe approaches, to issue forth anew when morning breaks.  Thus is it ordained.

20.  In truth, therefore, there is the Eternal Unmanifest, which is beyond and above the Unmanifest Spirit of Creation, which is never destroyed when all these beings perish.

21.  The wise say that the Unmanifest and Indestructible is the highest goal of all; when once That is reached, there is no return.  That is My Blessed Home.

22.  O Arjuna! That Highest God, in Whom all beings abide, and Who pervades the entire universe, is reached only by whole-hearted devotion.

23.  Now I will tell thee, O Arjuna, of the times at which, if the mystics go forth, they do not return, and at which they go forth only to return.

24.  If knowing the Supreme Spirit the sage goes forth with fire and light, in the daytime, in the fortnight of the waxing moon and in the six months before the Northern summer solstice, he will attain the Supreme.

25.  But if he departs in gloom, at night, during the fortnight of the waning moon and in the six months before the Southern solstice, then he reaches but lunar light and he will be born again.

26.  These bright and dark paths out of the world have always existed.  Whoso takes the former, returns not; he who chooses the latter, returns.

27.   O Arjuna! The saint knowing these paths is not confused.  Therefore meditate perpetually.

28.   The sage who knows this passes beyond all merit that comes from the study of the scriptures, from sacrifice, from austerities and charity, and reaches the Supreme Primeval Abode."

Thus, in the Holy Book the Bhagavad Gita, one of the Upanishads, in the Science of the Supreme Spirit, in the Art of Self-Knowledge, in the colloquy between the Divine Lord Shri Krishna and the Prince Arjuna, stands the eighth chapter, entitled:

"The Life Everlasting"